View full sizeThe Portland Breakers played in front of an average crowd of almost 20,000 at Civic Stadium in 1985.

America must have spit soda through its nose, or laughed out loud. Football
fans must have elbowed each other and made jokes about how far the nearest ocean
was from Civic Stadium, where the Portland "Breakers" would play their home
games.

Nevermind that in 1985 the Breakers were in their third city in three
desperate USFL seasons. Nevermind that they had moved from Boston to New Orleans
before loading up the organization and shipping it to Portland. Nevermind, too,
that the USFL was all but dead.

The Breakers belonged to Portland. They were ours, sweet ours. And with the
Giants-Patriots all set, and the country focused on the biggest game in all of
football, I can't think of a better idea than to bring up the heyday of
professional football in Oregon.

He was the Breakers coach. The only Breakers head coach ever. Coury coached
the Breakers in all three cities and all three seasons. A longtime NFL
assistant, he mixed it up at practice sometimes by putting a keg in the end zone
and letting his players race to it. And Coury said about that: "There was never
beer in the keg. Don't know if the players knew that."

For 20 minutes Coury told me about how successful he thought the Breakers,
led by star halfback Marcus Dupree, might have been in Portland given time and
health. He talked about the USFL's initial mission to play spring and summer
football. And he talked about the pool of talented USFL players, which included
three consecutive Heisman Trophy winners (1983-85) and future Pro Football Hall
of Famers Steve Young, Jim Kelly, Gary Zimmerman and Reggie White.

But most of all, Coury talked about what a great football city Portland
was.

"We finally had it all together," he said. "We had a decent team, we had a
city that wanted us, but by then, the USFL was a struggle. We had more than
enough players to make the league go, but Donald Trump wanted to move to the
Fall and fight the NFL and there's just no way."

The Breakers, finished 6-12 in 1985. But they were 6-3 at what is now
Jeld-Wen Field. Tight end Dan Ross, an NFL veteran with the Cincinnati Bengals,
led Portland with five touchdown catches in 1985. But Dupree, injured, carried
only 17 times that season. "Dupree was a special, special dog-gone player,"
Coury said. "Dang."

With the USFL locked up in a lawsuit with the NFL, ownership decided to
cease operations and cited $17 million in losses from the three seasons, mostly
from the struggles of re-location. But while in Portland for that one season of
football, the Breakers drew an average of 19,919 playing in a stadium with a
capacity of 32,500.

"Portland was so good to us, and we were trying to be good for Portland,"
said Coury, who was named the USFL's Coach of the Year in 1983. "People treated
us so well."

Coury had his sons coaching with him, too. One of his children, Steve,
coached wide receivers with the USFL's Breakers as a 25-28 year old assistant.
Now, he's the coach at Lake Oswego High, where his team won the Class 6A state
championship this season.

Said Steve: "I was a sponge. I got to hang around with dad and with guys
like Roman Gabriel... we had a receiver, Charlie Smith, who I'd watched when he
played with the Eagles when my dad coached him in the NFL. He was older than me.

"One day I was shagging balls, the next I was training him."

I have no doubt that an NFL franchise would have been a bit hit in Portland
if the 1964 "Delta Dome" $25 million bond measure had not narrowly failed. The
Delta Dome was a 45,000-seat baseball-football complex proposed in an era when
the NFL and MLB were expanding. Now, we would need a publicly funded stadium. We
would need an owner. We would need an opportunity from the league. A pipe dream,
basically. And if it never happens, it's a shame.

In that single season of USFL football, Portland outdrew six of the
league's 14 teams -- including the Los Angeles Express, Oakland Invaders, Baltimore
Stars and Denver Gold -- despite playing in the league's second smallest stadium.

Coury wanted another season. Portland wanted another season, but after the
USFL won its lawsuit with the NFL -- but received just a $3 judgment -- it faced
going head to head with the NFL.

Said Coury: "Picking that fight with the NFL was the end of us."

It was also the end of pro football in Portland.

The college teams in Oregon draw solid support. And Portland is a great NFL
city, with television ratings to prove it. We live in the largest market in the
country that has only one big-three major professional sports franchise, and the
Trail Blazers are on a 168-game home sellout streak after Friday's game with
Phoenix.

Portland's only brushes with professional football came with desperate
tenants and dying leagues. Something about that doesn't feel right.
Jacksonville, another USFL city, eventually got an NFL team. So did Phoenix, who
traded the Arizona Wranglers in 1983-85 for the NFL's Cardinals in 1988.

Doesn't Portland deserve it's third shot at pro football?

Yeah – third.

Prior to the Breakers in 1985, Portland had one other professional football
brush. The World Football League's Portland Storm played the 1974 season here,
and part of the 1975 season, too, as the Portland Thunder.

I'd tell you that I called their head coach, too. But I already did.

Coury was Portland's WFL coach as well. "Of course, I was," he said. Marty
Schottenheimer, who played for Coury in the NFL, got his first football coaching
job on Coury's staff in Portland. And so even while this city has had good
coaching, it's never really had a chance to sustain football.

"Marty called and I said we didn't have room for him as a player, so he
said, 'I'm thinking of coaching,' and that's how he got into coaching," Coury
said. "He's a good dog-gone coach."

The Storm went 1-8-1 to start the 1974 season. The team added the Oakland
Raiders Ben Davidson and Pete Bethard (cut by the Kansas City Chiefs) at
midseason and ripped off a 6-4 finish to the season. "Davidson was a beast,"
Coury said. Final record: 7-12-1.

In 1975, the Thunder drew 14,000 a game to Civil Stadium. But the league
folded after Portland played 11 games, four of them victories.

"You want to talk about a real struggle," Coury said. "The league couldn't
even pay the players. They just stopped paying the guys after a while. The fans
in Portland were so good they brought sandwiches to the games for the players,
or they'd stop at practices and bring picnic lunches.

"They knew we were struggling, and were trying to make life pleasant. I'll
never forget that."